Jessica's Birthday

We enjoyed a great visit with Jessica, her second time home in 18 frakkin' months! She looked great, very healthy, and very mature. We had a nice gathering for her 18th birthday. She's completed her high school academics but returned to school to finish "the program". This week she does the five day Pinnacle, which is an intensive group with lots of emotional work and little sleep. Then, she is off for the Gift Trip, which is two weeks of community service at a facility for adults with mental handicaps. In mid-August we gather in the little town-next-to-the-middle-of-nowhere for her graduation, hooray! We are all glad this journey is coming to an end, and proud of Jessica for all her hard work. The adjustments to college life should be a snap, and in fact day-to-day life a lot easire: no kitchen crew, no farm crew, no barn crew!

Luna di Miele

D & I took our belated honeymoon to Italia and had a great trip. Picture perfect weather for all day walking tours of Firenze & Perugia. D's favorite was San Marco's frescoes by Fra Angelico, gems of the early Renaissance. In Perugia she encouraged me to explore the school I attended in 1973, L'Universita per Stranieri, and we found my classrooms, wow, memory lane!! We both loved the magical narrow streets & steps of medieval Perugia. Trip highlights: the Uffizi, Brunelleschi's S. Spirito, Perugia's Arco Etrusco (oldest known arch in Europe), S.S. Apostoli (a tiny OLD church in Firenze), S. Trinita's Ghirlandaio, S. Lorenzo's Michelangelo sculptures, S. Michele Arcangelo (an ancient church in Perugia, converted from a Roman temple, which I have dreamt about for 35 years!), Brunelleshci's Pazzi Chapel, S. Maria Novella's wild Fillipino Lippo frescoes, Brancaci chapel's Massacio & wandering up down the steep stairs of Perugia's narrow streets.

Bebe's Opening

We went to Santa Fe in April for Bebe Krimmer's opening at Chiaroscuro Gallery. Bebe is a great collagist and wonderful friend who we treasure. These pieces are based on images from astronomy and are a fabulous development for her work. The opening was a big success for Bebe, hooray! We had a lot of fun at dinner at Bebe's home afterwards with lots of her friends. And we added to our Bebe collection, buying a wonderful piece called Velocity of Rotation.

Commission

I have commissioned my first piece of music! It is a trio by Andrew List, a Boston composer who teaches at the Berklee College of Music, and it is for the Montage Music Society (www.montagemusicsociety.org). You might know their pianist, Debra Ayers. The piece is based on a Gaugain painting at the Boston MFA and will become part of Montage's repetoire related to the visual arts. Montage is working is on recording these pieces, hopefully this year, and support of this project is most welcome! I heard Montage play a preview of the piece in Boston and it is wonderful. The official premiere will be at the St. Botolph arts club in March (an organization with quite a history and membership).

Hooray! -- Updated

Jessica made it safe and sound from The Quest! I talked with her briefly and she said, "I never thought I'd be glad to be back at this school, but I am! This was the hardest thing I've ever done, even harder than wilderness." That's saying something, since she spent 40 days camping & backpacking in Oregon last winter in sub-freezing temperatures. Hopefully a stronger, more self-aware and self-confident young woman came down from the mountain! The details: backpacked 30 miles up the mountains on telemark skis, climbing 12,000 feet. It snowed everyday, including 30 inches during the 3 day solo.They carried all their gear, cooked all their meals in the snow, & slept in tents and hand-made shelters. We can guess on the hygiene!!

Architectural coincidence

Just finished reading Female Ruins by Geoff Nicholson, the story of the daughter of the deceased "most famous British architect never to have built a building". She ends up on a quest to see the one building he actually did build, which is unknown to scholars. Many years ago dad abandoned his family and stayed in contact with them, ....a la Louis Kahn, the American architect featured in the film My Architect (see below). Strange to stumble on both accidentally. If you like architecture, you might enjoy this quirky book, a fast read.

Quest

Jessica is in the middle of her eleven day Quest trip into the Selkirk Mountains in British Columbia. The photo is from the area they will be in, taken by the guy who is leading them. She and nine other students are backpacking on telemark skis and eating & sleeping in tents. They get one night in a yurt in the middle of the trip! She is doing a three day solo, which would give anyone plenty to time to reflect on life and on staying warm! Today's high there is five degrees! We understand that the scenery is spectacular, and the only way to see it is to ski in. We hope she is having fun in addition to building self-awarness and a large amount of self-confidence.